


The Hazards of Three-Player Islands

by thescyfychannel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Animal Crossing Woes, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Characters Playing Animal Crossing Game(s), M/M, Multi, Perfectionism, Swearing, The hazards of competitive gardening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24644887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescyfychannel/pseuds/thescyfychannel
Summary: There are tons of upsides to having three Player Character Villagers on your Animal Crossing Island! Tons! Especially when you have the game on the TV and controllers in hand, for multiplayer runs. You can collect recipes way faster, you have more shared resources to split between the three of you, shooting star nights are AMAZING, it's way easier to get things watered or moved when you've got extra inventories to switch to...Then, of course, there are the many, many,manydownsides to sharing an island with people like your beloved significant others...like fights over who moves in, where to plant what, what aesthetics to go with, which YouTube islands are the best ones to model yours after, so on and so forth...You're not going to admit how close you are to adjusting the Fun portion of the budget towards saving up for a second (and third) Switch. It's close! But you don't have to admit it until you actually do it. Right?
Relationships: Cronus Ampora/Dirk Strider, Cronus Ampora/Jake English, Cronus Ampora/Jake English/Dirk Strider, Jake English/Dirk Strider
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7
Collections: Homestuck Polyswap 2020 - Prospit





	The Hazards of Three-Player Islands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [auxanges](https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxanges/gifts).



> you know what! you go ham with this. i love shoving cronus where he doesnt belong and quite frankly so does he. maybe theyre on a swim team. maybe theyre roommates (oh my god maybe theyre roommates). maybe theyre collabing on an animal crossing town and jake is a museum completionist and cronus runs all over the flowers and dirk is about to snap the switch bc he caught his 200th sea bass and is convinced the switch is sentient and hates him. i need some more coffee
> 
> \---
> 
> ok, all of this

"Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you."

"Listen," you say, desperately trying to cling to your last scrap of sanity, "all I _said_ was that bamboo tends to like mountains—"

"Which means I have to transplant this _entire damn bamboo forest_ to the _mountains_ , Cronus, you know that. You know how this works!" Dirk pauses, and you're a little relieved, because you'd been kinda worried he was about to pass out from lack of breathing. "We don't have enough fucking fruit. I need more goddamn fruit."

You squirm in your seat; you'd taken most of town's native fruit on a little trip to go visit your baby bro and his girlfriend's town (they had peaches, and you really wanted to know how the _fuck_ Little Miss "Time Traveling Isn't Really My Style!" had already managed to get the place looking so _pretty_ , you were almost certain Danny was regretting giving her Player One status) and the profits of that visit had funded your second and third house expansions. "Coconuts?"

Honestly you'd expected him to snarl at you, but Dirk actually pauses, holding the unbroken Switch in his hands (you guys really ought to buy another one. Or more controllers. Maybe an extra game as well), and gives you an appraising look. "Huh. Okay, yeah. I'll hit up a goddamn Mystery Tour, I've got enough miles for that."

Even if you flash him a smug grin, you're breathing an internal sigh of relief and counting the hours until Jake gets home and takes over Dirk Duty again.

* * *

"FUCK." The exclamation has both you and Jake bolting upright from where you'd been, y'know, _cuddling_ , and staring, wide-eyed, at a seriously pissy Dirk. A quick glance at the clock tells you that it is indeed four AM (sometimes you need a good snuggle in the middle of the night to get back to sleep) and another glance at Dirk tells you that he's maybe about to break the switch in half. Uh.

"Another sea bass?" This is Jake, who manages to sound sympathetic even at this hour. "Ah, the sea is ever a cruel mistress—"

"This thing is alive," Dirk says, and he looks dead serious. He looks like a man who has seen the face of his uncaring god and now lives in fear of what his worship has wrought. "This thing is alive and it hates me."

"The switch does not hate you, babe," says Jake, and scoots closer to Dirk. You totally do not whine at the loss of his warmth. "How about we give this game the old college try? Maybe digging up some of those dandy little clams, fishing off the pier, you know you always like doing that."

Dirk frowns...then caves, scooting closer to Jake to show him the inventory—full of sea bass, no doubt, you don't even need to peek—and you groan, throw yourself across their legs, and smush your face into Dirk's stomach.

It's a damn good move on your part; they shift into soft chatter that becomes the background noise of your sleepy time, and every so often a hand drifts down to pet your hair.

Plus, it means you're the first one up in the morning, and _that_ is truly a rare gift to be treasured.

* * *

Sometimes you get so caught up in Dealing With Dirk that you forget how much of a fucking disaster Jake is too. Like. Seriously. Holy fuck. The dude's completionist tendencies would be on par with Dirk's, _if not worse_ , if not for the fact that they were (so far) confined to one, _very_ specific area.

There was a reason almost everything in the Museum had Jake's name on it.

(You and Dirk were quietly competing for second place and it was a goddamn point of pride for you that you were _winning._ )

Usually this was a cute little thing for you, watching Jake get all _determined_ to get the latest thing on his list. Usually. Usually.

The times that it _wasn't_ cute was when something (some creature, insect, fish, plant, whatever) was about to phase out from one season to the next and Jake's terrifying tendencies went into hyperdrive.

Like right now. Right now it was two in the goddamn morning and you were watching Jake run screaming through your town (metaphorically, in game, you were pretty sure no one had given him the screaming emote yet, if there even was one; literally, out of it, you were very relieved that between the three of you renting a detached townhouse was feasible and also helped stop the neighbours from hating you any more than they did) as he attempted to catch the last fish of the month before the hour went dark.

"Babe," you say, weary beyond all belief. "Do you really—"

"YES," he says, and you rub a hand over his face.

"But I donated one to the Museum yesterday, and—"

"DO YOU SEE ONE IN MY CRITTERPEDIA, AMPORA? DO YOU?"

Deep breath. Stay calm. "Wanna raid my stores for fish food?"

Jake turns to you, wide-eyed, and you silently thank yourself for your foresight. You're gonna get so lucky once the clock rolls over to the next month, if you're still even awake.

* * *

There's an even rarer occurrence re: the shared Switch, one so rare that you tend to forget it's a thing at all—Bad Cronus Behaviour, as your significant assholes like to call it. You hate those attractive and adorable fuckers. Bastards. You're barely bad at all, compared to them.

...

Probably why your shit so often gets overlooked.

Anyway.

The current source of your sulk is that you've been docked Switch time due to having run over _another_ set of someone's breeding flowers, and it's not even a little bit your fault. You left them out fences! Fences you'd made with materials you'd gathered with your own two hands! And yet they weren't used simply because they didn't match the _flowers' aesthetic_. Absolute bastards. They were probably still grumpy about you saying using Bunny Day fencing wasn't nearly as bad an idea as they both seemed to think.

"Guys," you say, attempting to sound as pitiful as you possibly can, "I need to give Aurora a present so she doesn't move out and forget me."

The cruel, unforgiving loves of your life turn cold stares on you. "Just tell me which present it is," Jake says. "I'll deliver it for you."

You slide your way down the couch with a long, exaggerated whine. Meanwhile, the two of them just grin, watching you suffer.

"Like I said," Dirk says, reaching out to pet your hair. You refuse to let him know that it feels nice. "As soon as we've got the _right_ fences up, we'll let you play unsupervised."

"Or he can as soon as we've got another Switch!"

"And another game. He can screw up all the flowers he wants in his own game."

"But I don't want him to _move_."

"He wouldn't have to move. It'd be like a secondary island for the three of us. In fact—"

"Shut up," you tell them both, and back your challenge with kisses. Sometimes it's really the only way to get _your_ way—and all's fair in love and Animal Crossing.


End file.
